Staff employed by the Centre intégré de santé et des services sociaux de l’Outaouais (CISSSO) have made their long list of grievances public over the last year.
Here in the Pontiac, support staff at the Shawville Hospital staged a protest on Feb. 19 decrying the chronic understaffing of Outaouais hospitals.
Support staff at the hospital said they were being worked to the point of exhaustion. Many were coming in to work sick in order to ease the workload on their co-workers.
It’s to the point where a sudden uptick in flu cases pushed the Hull and Gatineau hospitals over 200 per cent capacity back in February.
So how does CISSSO respond to the amount of work these employees have put in during a trying time?
Three chocolates.
That’s right. CISSSO employees were generously given three chocolates for their hard work and onerous overtime hours worked.
These are the same staff members that are coming in to work – at a healthcare facility – when they are sick in order to ensure their co-workers don’t have to work 12-hour-plus shifts to pick up the slack.
These are the same staff members who have had to deal with a cockroach infestation at the Hull hospital.
These employees really only want one thing: more co-workers.
They keep telling CISSSO that there aren’t enough of them to deal with the workload.
Maybe CISSSO should be listening to them.
After all, according to the demographics, this problem is only going to get worse.
An aging population means hospitals will be getting an influx of patients in the next few years as the baby boomers get older and their need for healthcare increases.
If it’s tough to staff these hospitals now, how is it going to happen when there are even more patients to deal with?
Granted, CISSSO plans to host a job fair here in the Pontiac – the first one in these parts since the organization’s creation – which is a good start.
But to think that spending $17,000 to give each employee three chocolates was a good idea?
Sure, $17,000 isn’t really a big deal when it comes to an organization with a budget of over $600 million.
But when disgruntled employees have made their demands crystal clear, it seems pretty tone deaf to give them a few pieces of chocolate in the hopes it will placate them like a bunch of children.
Chris Lowrey
